Bloom Energy: Sunnyvale company to build factory in Delaware

Sunnyvale-based Bloom Energy will build a 200,000-square-foot manufacturing facility on the site of a former Chrysler plant in Newark, Del., as part of a deal to provide Delmarva Power with 30 megawatts of power, Bloom's largest contract to date.

The announcement, made Thursday by Delaware Gov. Jack Markell and pending approval by his state's utility regulators, marks Bloom Energy's first expansion outside California as well as a growing willingness on the part of utilities to use Bloom's fuel-cell technology.

"Some of the world's largest companies have chosen Bloom Energy to power their growth, and now Bloom has chosen Delaware as the best site for their expansion," Markell said in a statement.

Like several other states, Delaware has an aggressive "Renewable Portfolio Standard" that requires utilities to get 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources like solar, wind and geothermal by 2025. Markell will ask the state's General Assembly to consider legislation to add fuel cells to that list, so that the energy produced by Bloom can be counted toward Delmarva Power's renewable requirement.

"It's a really exciting partnership," Josh Richman, Bloom's vice president of business development, said in an interview. "Bloom Energy Servers will be a vital tool for utilities to meet their sustainability goals."

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The company, which officially launched in early 2010, has more than 700 full-time employees worldwide, most of whom work in Sunnyvale. Bloom's customers include Adobe Systems (ADBE), California Institute of Technology, Google (GOOG), eBay (EBAY) and the operator of the public ice rink where the San Jose Sharks practice. The customers are overwhelmingly located in California, and Bloom said it is committed to maintaining manufacturing in the Golden State.

The expansion to Delaware, centrally located in the mid-Atlantic region and close to policymakers in Washington, D.C., positions Bloom to move aggressively into the East Coast market.

Fuel cells use hydrogen, natural gas, methane or other fuels to generate electricity through an electrochemical process that produces a fraction of the emissions of a typical power plant and can operate 24 hours a day. For decades, researchers have tried to perfect solid oxide fuel cells, which operate at temperatures above 1,472 degrees and can use fuels other than hydrogen. Bloom Energy says it has solved many solid oxide engineering challenges and that its devices can recycle the waste heat to produce more electricity.

Each Bloom Energy Server -- commonly known as "Bloom Boxes" -- provides 100 kilowatts of power, enough to meet the energy needs of a small office building. Within each device are thousands of fuel cells that are sandwiched into stacks. Each energy server contains 64 stacks of fuel cells.

Delmarva, which provides electricity to 498,000 customers in Delaware, wants 30 megawatts of electricity from Bloom -- which will require 300 Bloom Boxes. It makes sense to build them nearby, Bloom officials said, because each server weighs 10 tons and the cost of shipping them from Sunnyvale would be prohibitive﻿.

Bloom's new factory will be located on the site of a former Chrysler plant that closed in December 2008 and is currently being demolished. Bloom expects the new factory to create up to 900 jobs directly and an additional 600 jobs among its suppliers. An estimated 350 construction jobs could be created this year, with production expected to begin in 2012.

Contact Dana Hull at 408-920-2706. Follow her at Twitter.com/danahull.

30Number of megawatts Bloom Energy will provide to the Delaware power company300Number of "Bloom Boxes" needed to generate the electricity.900The number of jobs to be generated directly by the new facility